Main menu

Search form

Ukraine: New rightist government backed by West as crisis deepens

The governments of the United States, Europe and Canada are working furiously to help consolidate the conservative and rightist government that has come into office in Ukraine after the overthrow of the authoritarian regime of Victor Yanukovych 10 days ago.

The overthrow of the regime came about through a confluence of mass protests against its authoritarian rule and retrograde social and economic policies, and a very active intervention by right-wing and fascist political forces.

The rightists of the Svoboda party along with fascists of the Right Sector constellation dominated much of the street protests of the past several months. Some leaders of Svoboda have been appointed as ministers of the new government.

The protest movement has been named by many observers as "The Euromaidan" for the views of many of its participants in favour of closer economic ties to capitalist Europe and for the main square in the centre of the capital Kiev, which is called The Maidan.

The Russian government is very unsettled by the overthrow of Yanukovych and will strive for a dominant role in the future of Ukraine. It has intervened militarily in the Crimea Peninsula in order to protect its military installations there and to assure for itself the dominant political role in the region going forward.

A referendum on autonomy may take place in Crimea as soon as March 30. The “autonomy” vote will effectively be a proposal that the majority Russian-speaking region loosen its ties with Ukraine and deepen them with Russia.

The political left in Ukraine is small and facing very difficult conditions of dominance of right wing ideology, assault and violence in the protest movement and in the country as a whole. A very good English-language source of articles and documents translated from Ukrainian and Russian is the East Europe-based website, Left-East.

Below is a selection of key material in English that has appeared on that website in the past several months about the crisis in Ukraine.

After Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine yesterday, one of the editors of Left-East has written, "In my view, any denunciation of the Russian military operations which does not ALSO take explicit distance from the coup politics of the West and its collusion with the far-right forces in Ukraine is using both the peace movement and Eastern Europe for other interests.

"It is especially sad if such denunciations are expressed by Western leftists."

Sections

General

Sites

In these days of growing media concentration, Green Left Weekly is a proudly independent voice committed to human and civil rights, global peace and environmental sustainability, democracy and equality. By printing the news and ideas the mainstream media won't, Green Left Weekly exposes the lies and distortions of the power brokers and helps us to better understand the world around us.